World briefing

Taliban exposes cracks in Nato

Nato chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer's public plea yesterday for up to 2,500 additional soldiers to fight alongside British, Canadian and Dutch forces in southern Afghanistan has highlighted deep internal strains in the alliance caused by unexpectedly fierce Taliban resistance in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.

The Nato secretary-general's appeal followed an unsuccessful attempt to drum up more support from leading members such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain in Warsaw at the weekend. A formal force generation conference will be held today. "We are working on getting nations to do what they promised," Mr De Hoop Scheffer said. "I am calling for alliance solidarity because some nations are carrying more of the burden than others."

But promises notwithstanding, Nato might struggle to find the extra soldiers, said Lord Garden, former assistant chief of the defence staff. "They've got real problems. You have to remember how reluctant many members were to send troops south in the first place. And the agreement was for stabilisation and reconstruction, not counter-insurgency."

He added: "This is supposed to be the first stage of a two-stage operation. The plan is for Nato to take over from the Americans in the east next year. That is potentially even more problematic. So it's difficult to see who will provide the extra troops. They do seem to have been caught a bit short. They need to have a rethink about setting more modest objectives."

Countries accused of letting the side down dispute the charge. "France is already doing an awful lot in Afghanistan," a spokesman said. "We have over 1,000 troops there, including special forces attached to the [US-led] Operation Enduring Freedom. But now we are sending 2,000 soldiers to Lebanon. We have 14,000 troops deployed abroad in total - about the same as the UK. It's not a lack of solidarity. It's a question of resources."

Germany, with about 2,800 troops in Afghanistan, was already involved in "sharp-end" operations in the north and had quietly contributed special forces to counter-insurgency missions further south, said Constanze Stelzenmüller, a security specialist at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. "There is already a very robust engagement. And although there is public criticism, there is an understanding that we have to get the job done. What we are seeing is very usual. Nato can't quite bring itself to commit sufficient forces. But everyone knew that once Nato took over from the US, things would get a lot tougher. One reason is the drug trade. It is not a counter-insurgency on the scale of Iraq. It's more about money and local warlord power than ideology."

Stabilising Afghanistan was "do-able", she said. And she predicted Germany would do more if necessary. Domestic political considerations, national caveats and differing rules of engagement, cost considerations and, in the case of Spain, deeply held objections to the Bush administration's conduct of the "war on terror" are other factors in the reinforcements debate. Asked whether today's conference would deliver, a Nato official in Brussels said: "To be honest, we don't know. The request has been made. If it is not met, it will become a political matter." That could presage sharpening tension between the US and some European allies.

But even if Nato obtained all the troops it wanted, its current southern strategy would not achieve its stated aims and should be reconsidered, said Ayesha Khan, an Afghanistan specialist and associate fellow of Chatham House. "In fact, it's destabilising the area. It has sidelined the state-building and reconstruction agenda. It has sidelined the disarming of [independent] militias. It has also undermined efforts to stop the opium trade," she said.

"The US has made the south the frontline in the 'war on terror'. Nato came into this thinking peacekeeping, not conflict operations. They did not foresee the complications and the potential for mission creep. The strategy is not working."